[rueynshard]

Students in elite American universities (ivy-plus) come from the top 1% of all American students in their cohort, not to mention other countries. However dismal American performances in PISA/TIMSS and other tests have been, the top 1% of roughly 3 million students every year are still bound to be generally smarter and more motivated than the average Singaporean or Japanese student.

[bjourne]

What makes you think other countries does not also have "elite" universities? China and India has five times the population of the US and several universities which are harder to get into than MIT. Fwiw, I don't believe in the theory of the GP. Math is a subject best done by yourself so what your peers know or not doesn't matter, imho.

[ep103]

Scroll through, and just take note of how many are American, vs other. Choose any international university ranking, I leave the following on just as an example.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankin...

[bjourne]

Such rankings are bullshit and easily gamed.

[walshemj]

And I have a suspicion that PISA is gamed to save face I suspect if it was taken by a representative sample of all school age kids the scores would be different